Tokyo Day 0 ~ Harajuku

After breakfast at our hotel we left for Shizuoka station to get to Tokyo. It was nice to have breakfast at the hotel though it was not much. But they offer a good choice of drinks and coffee and could so much as you like. They serves bread, milk pans and croissants with strawberry or blueberry jam. That was all but you could put everything in a little oven – typical japanese XD

breakfast at our hotel

At the station we got a little angry because today the weather was totally nice and even sunny >.<

Shizuoka didn't like us...

For the shinkansen we got ourselves seat reservations and a bento. I had a vegetarian with fried rice with Erbsen and egg and some tsukemono.

my bento

We reached Tokyo in a bit more than one hour^^

We checked-in the Shiba Park Hotel as always and were happy that we could pack some things out for this week. Because it was just early afternoon we decided to visit Harajuku today. There are some things I wanted to buy there. First we visited the Laforet because I wanted to buy a necklace at 'Mint Neko' and I was successful^^v

At Takeshita-dori we visited the goodies shop again where you get charakter goods and so on. But they had no Funasshi stuff this year T.T

But I bought an eyeglasses case of Card Captor Sakura instead^^ (very practical because I forgot mine at home)

eyeglasses case & glasses cloth

When shopping was finished we decided to go back to our hotel already because we didn't want to miss the next volleyball game of our guys X3
So we bought dinner at the family mart and made ourselves comfortable in our room^^

kare raisu and watching TV

Matcha macarons I offered as dessert^^

This was a nice arrival day. Tomorrow Kiki and I will separate, so I guess I will visit Ginza/Shinbashi^^

Shizuoka ~ rainy day

We looked forward to our day in Shizuoka and have some sightseeing for a change. In Shizuoka is a famous temple of the old shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa and the area of the destroyed Sumpo Castle (where Tokugawa used to live).

After breakfast we started our trip but unfortunately it was already raining. Sumpo Castle was near our hotel so we could walk there. The castle was destroyed several times so just the east gate was rebuild. In the building is a museum about the castle now but we didn't want to visit. On the castle is now a beautiful park. Many flowers were arranged because there would be a festival on the upcoming weekend. In the middle of the park is also a great statue of Tokugawa.

Sumpo Castle East Gate

Tokugawa Statue

Because it was still raining we visited the Tully's coffee again to become dry again and warm a little up. But during our stay the rain got even heavier...

It was no use walking around outside, we would just get totally wet, so it wouldn't be fun to climb up the hill to the temple and walk around there. We just strolled around the underground mall and visited the PARCO shopping building. We were surprised to find another Tower Records shop there.

At 'Loft' which is on the highest floor we also found many Funasshi and Star Wars goods but no purikura album for me U.U

So we didn't buy anything today and got a little depressed because of the weather. We just walked up and down the main street afterwards. You find many western fastfood restaurants there (Mc Donalds, Burger King, KFC) and Shizuoka seems to be popular for wedding stuff (dresses and rings). But It was kind of time wasting today...

Shizuoka Shopping Street

So we ended up at our hotel room again. We bought some sandwiches and snacks and made ourselves comfortable to watch the next volleyball game – our light at the end of the tunnel today.

Shizuoka doesn't like us. So we are really happy to leave tomorrow for Tokyo...

Shizuoka Day 0 ~ Shizuoka 109

After breakfast we fetched our luggage and headed for Osaka Station to get our Japan Rail Pass. From Shin-Osaka we finally took the Hiraki Shinkansen to Shizuoka. We love riding the Shinkansen, it is so comfortable^^

We bought ourselves a bento at the station, so that we could have lunch in the train (many Japanese do so as well). It just took two hours to Shizuoka. Unfortunately it rained when we arrived >.<

But this time we found our hotel easily and it wasn't far away from the station. We will stay two nights at Shizuoka Town Hotel. It is small hotel and some people of the hotel staff can't speak English but they very friendly. Because it was just 3 pm we had to wait one hour till we could check-in. So what should we do in the meantime? Get ourselves umbrellas at the donki on the other side of the street and head for the next coffee shop X3

We passed by a café at the corner of the street so we went there. But I don't like the variety of drinks and my wanted drink (ginger tea latte) was sold out *drop* but it was okay to spend one hour and make plans for the evening.

entrance of the coffee shop

Finally we could check-in and found ourselves in an even smaller room than in Osaka^^;
We had problems to store our luggage... but everything was clean, they had even brought our bags already to our room and it will be okay for two nights. So we prepared us to go checking out the Shizuoka 109 which shouldn't be far away from our hotel.
It was kind of cute XD It has just 5 floors and one floor is almost completely occupied by the 100 Yen shop 'Seria'. But there were many known brands like Cecil McBee, Liz Lisa, Rianda, Egoist and so on. When we went there it was almost completely empty, so it was very relaxing to watch everything^^

Shizuoka 109 at day & at night

Afterwards we found a Tully's Coffee nearby (the café where we always have breakfast in Tokyo), so we made another coffee break. And because it is autumn season now they have again special offer with pumpkin^.^
So Kiki and I tried the new Caramel Pumpkin Latte. It is just awesome *_*

tall caramel pumpkin latte^.^

That was enough the rest of the day and we went back to our hotel. We enjoyed another volleyball game on TV. We really like the guys, two of them are sooo cute X3

our cuties X3